BendigoWeekly www.bendigoweekly.com.au
ISSUE 998 FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2016
Bright nights THE Deacon family are yuletide artists after decorating for 21 years. Creating this year’s Christmas vision in Harpin Street, Strathdale took a week to complete but will bring cheer to every person who passes by.
TIGHTEN UP
By SHARON KEMP
DON’T expect another big-spending year from the City of Greater Bendigo. That was the signal sent by councillors this week when they rejected a jointuse community building with the Epsom Primary School that would have cost ratepayers $405,000. In a clear sign of a changing of the council guard since the election, all new councillors turned down the proposal that was tabled at the last minute with the school about to tender for contractors to build its impending $5.7 million new school in fast-growing Epsom.
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Photo: ANDREW PERRYMAN
Councillors take new direction
Re-elected councillors Rod Fyffe and James Williams were the only two to vote for building the joint-use facility which would have been used for allied health consultations, community meetings and playgroups. Cr Williams implored the councillors to vote to build the facility. “I would be very disappointed, councillors, if you don’t support this, I do believe that the community out there would not be very unhappy with an outcome that didn’t support the
development of this site,” he said. “We currently lease and utilise another site for... some of those health services and it barely meets the standards. Existing buildings in the area were “already at full capacity on evenings and weekends in winter, and at 75 per cent capacity in summer with year on year growth in usage occurring,” council officers wrote in the report to councillors. “It is forecast that the day time
Conduct revisited – Page 3
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capacity of all of these facilities on week days, during school hours, will be reached within five years.” This was contradicted by Cr Andrea Metcalf who said that in a couple of phone calls, she had identified six rooms for hire north of the city. “With rate capping in force now, every project that comes across the council table needs to be fully scrutinised before the council can commit funds to it,” Cr Metcalf said. “We need to be prudent with our
financial decision making. “The school will still be getting a new school.” Last year’s budget boasted the largest capital spend of any in Bendigo’s history as four large projects – the Greater Bendigo Indoor Aquatic and Wellbeing Centre, the airport, Bendigo Stadium and the White Hills Botanical Gardens – came on stream. It coincided with state govermentinitiated rate-capping that puts a 2.5 per cent ceiling on rate increases. The decision is also the second time the council has forced the Epsom Primary School to alter its plans at the last minute.
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